Home ground advantage

An excellent piece from (who else but?) Gideon Haigh today, touching on something that I've been thinking for a while (esp with regard to the subcontinent). Namely, that home ground advantage ain't what it used to be:

This has the hallmarks of an epochal change. Consider that for the first 130 years of Test cricket, Australia lost at home only to England, West Indies and one stray series by the odd Test to New Zealand.

Consider, too, that Pakistan did not lose a home series for its first 40 years in Test cricket, and that West Indies in their period of supremacy did not lose in the Caribbean for more than two decades.

Third-country umpires came along 20 years ago to eliminate one long-standing ground of complaints about favouritism, while the advent of referees curbed some excesses in pitch preparation.

But these developments were more obviously offset by the relative brevity of tours: the fact that teams often undertook Test matches with the bare minimum of preparation.

So what has happened in the past five years? There is nothing like seeing something done for the first time. In hindsight, the back-to-back series between Australia and South Africa in 2008-09 gave a glimpse of the possible, each team beating the other convincingly on their own soil.

It still plays a role; English batsman had no trouble belting Asian spinners in 2010 and 2011 when all the Asian sides toured England; those same spinners then gave England's batsmen enormous problems when England toured Asia.

In reality what is shaping those stats is one the rise of SA while at the same time being unusually poor at home for a dominant team. Australia haven't been bothered at home by any except SA and Eng. Eng have been bothered only by SA.

The more important factor is the ratio between tests v bangladesh compared to tests overall, and also importantly the lack of home tests for pakistan. The rest of the comparison between 03-07 and 08-12 is pretty similar. (except for the unfortunate breaching of the Australian fortress)

But these developments were more obviously offset by the relative brevity of tours: the fact that teams often undertook Test matches with the bare minimum of preparation.

Hang on, so he points out that there were short tours. That's still going on! Teams are spending less and less time in countries playing less and less tour matches, and this was previously used as a reason why teams sucked when they travelled.

He doesn't properly explain that away as to why that isn't a factor anymore. And I doubt being on "Skype" with the family has the ablity to overwrite the fact that tours are rushed nowadays and players have no practice.